The Malaysian Insider :: Features
The Malaysian Insider :: Features |
| Japan’s yakuza mobsters becoming “Goldman Sachs with guns” Posted: 01 Dec 2013 04:52 AM PST Japanese mobsters driving flash cars purchased with bank loans. Executives bowing in apology for loaning millions to those underworld figures. And high-level officials vowing to squash the crime syndicates, known as yakuza. Japan Inc. is engulfed in its worst mob scandal in years and it's shining a rare light on the links between big business and shadowy organised crime groups usually known for low-brow ventures like extortion and loan sharking. But with membership falling as police ratchet up a crackdown, experts say the yakuza are branching far outside their traditional business into everything from insider trading to funding business startups. "Insider trading has become huge - you can make much more money manipulating stocks" than extorting businesses, says Jake Adelstein, a crime writer whose bestselling memoir Tokyo Vice is set to become a Hollywood movie. Adelstein, a former reporter at Japan's top-selling Yomiuri daily, likens the Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan's biggest organised crime group, to "Goldman Sachs with guns". Tattoos and missing pinkies Many mobsters - forever associated with full-body tattoos and lopped-off pinky fingers - have now ditched that tough guy persona in favour of tailored suits and clean-cut look that could pass in any boardroom, Adelstein said. "They're savvy investors," he said added. "They like to gamble." The yakuza occupy a grey area in Japan's usually law-abiding society. They are both feared and loathed as social outcasts, while they're revered in equal measure through film, fanzines and manga cartoons. Like the Italian mafia or Chinese triads, the yakuza engage in activities ranging from gambling, drugs, and prostitution to loan sharking, protection rackets and other illegal ventures often run through front companies. But unlike their foreign counterparts, yakuza are legal groups with offices in major Japanese cities, and they have historically been tolerated by authorities, although there are periodic clampdowns on some of their less savoury activities. In fact, the Yamaguchi-gumi helped dole out food after a major quake in the western city of Kobe in 1995. "Sophisticated methods" But Tokyo is now under intense pressure from abroad to clamp down on yakuza and their money laundering, as the US Treasury Department works to freeze the overseas assets of top Japanese crime groups which it says make "billions of dollars annually in illicit proceeds". The crackdown at home has intensified after Mizuho Bank said in September that it had loaned money to organised crime members, an admission subsequently repeated by at least four other major lenders including Japan's biggest bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group. Sometimes loans were legitimately used by gangsters to buy foreign sports cars or other expensive items, while in other cases the vehicle was quickly sold on the black market with the loan never paid back. The scandal at Mizuho worsened after it initially said top executives knew nothing about the loans, only to backtrack on that claim as a company-commissioned report blasted its laissez-faire compliance. Mizuho later said more than 50 executives would be punished with its chief executive foregoing pay for six months. But the latest admissions are not a first for the country's banks, a big source of concern among police wary of sharing details of investigations with mob-linked firms, experts say. "It is baffling that Mizuho board members failed to act," said Toshihiko Kubo, professor of financial law at Ritsumeikan University. "Once they learned that loan recipients were related to the mob, they should have taken immediate action." Major lenders are routinely approached by those with links to organised crime looking to raise money, said an anti-yakuza campaigner in Tokyo, echoing calls from Finance Minister Taro Aso, among others, to tighten banking rules. "Crime syndicates... are out to make money, and they'll use whatever means available," said the campaigner, who asked not to be identified. "Many companies are trying not to deal with organised crime...But It's difficult to filter everything because their methods are also becoming sophisticated." Earlier this year, the Japan Securities Dealers Association launched a database to help keep those with mob links out of the country's now-sizzling stock market. The pressure on Tokyo to clean up the problem is set to intensify as Japan looks to host the 2020 Summer Olympics. On paper, the police crackdown appears headed in the right direction with yakuza membership down by about 28 percent to 63,000 in 2012 from a decade ago, according to police data. Mob links run deep Still, yakuza links run deep in Japan and some credit their tough presence for keeping street crime low. Their place is so deeply rooted that senior politicians are sometimes found to have mob ties, including ex-Justice Minister Keishu Tanaka who resigned last year following reports of his association with mobsters. "There are lots of politicians that, in some sense, owe their positions to yakuza support back in old days, so clearly their influence is not non-existent," Adelstein says. "It's still a bizarre system because Japan's organised crime groups are legal entities. They are regulated but not banned." - AFP, December 1, 2013. |
| In Paris, umbrellas built to outlast their owners Posted: 30 Nov 2013 07:10 PM PST The 48-year-old artisan uses the finest of materials for his umbrellas and parasols, which are made to last and intended to be handed down from generation to generation. Despite his high prices, Heurtault's Paris shop attracts clients from around the world – one Qatari princess went for an umbrella handle covered with shagreen, a type of leather, at a cost of more than €8,000 (RM47,300). "Umbrellas have always been my passion," he says. "They were my favourite toy when I was small. I was fascinated – which my mother found very strange!" he says, recalling how he used to take them apart, using parts from two to build a single umbrella. Heurtault only set up his business in 2008, but some of his tools are more than 100 years old. The setting is also special, in one of the elegant 19th-century arches under a former railway viaduct in eastern Paris housing many chic shops of skilled artisans. "All those umbrellas are made in China," he says as he watches pedestrians pass by the shop on a wet autumn day. "Here, everything is done by hand, which is unique," says Heurtault, who also restores umbrellas and creates them for the film industry. Heurtault's business partner Jean-Yves Thibert says Australians and Japanese are "gaga for parasols", while umbrellas have a following in the United States and Europe, particularly in Austria and Germany. Throwaway culture The cheapest woman's item costs 2€50 and is made of silk, with a leather-covered handle. For men, the cheapest is €490, which buys an elegant gentleman's umbrella in silk twill with a maplewood handle. "You won't find that kind of finish anywhere else," says Thibert. Heurtault despairs of what he sees as today's throwaway culture. "Things are becoming cheaper and cheaper, they don't last, they break easily and are disposable. These umbrellas are made to last generations." "In the 1950s people didn't lose their umbrellas, they looked after them," he says. Today, a girl buys an umbrella for €10, breaks it, and buys another for €10. Of course it doesn't last." At Heurtault, they do things differently. Clients can opt for bespoke umbrellas, choosing the handle, the fabric, the pattern and the wood. "This is real luxury, it's not standardised," says Thibert, showing off antique handles sourced all over France. One is made of ivory with insets of pearl. – AFP, December 1, 2013. |
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